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Top 11 Worst Episodes I've Reviewed (2015)
You know, I have a lot of fun just looking back upon a year and figuring out what the best and worst things I've reviewed in the entire year were. However, I usually do this in February because that month is an anniversary of when I first started. However, I think it's more appropriate to move it to the January and February area. All three of the lists - my favorite reviews, most hated episodes I've reviewed, and favorite episodes that I've reviewed. (Might have even reviewed enough to actually make a top 10 for that last one this year). I'm doing the atrocity list now because the other 1 or 2 reviews this year will be the other admirables. For the atrocities I've got a couple of rules. Number one, I can't use movies, or anything longer than 23 minutes. It can't be a mini series either. So nothing like Doggy Poo. Also, the earliest review I can use for this particular list is Glenn Martin DDS, "Save the Tooth." I did review Problem Solverz' "Time Twister" this year, and it deserves to be on this list (it'd be number 2 or 3), I've already put it the last "worst of list." As much as it deserves to be on two lists, I think it'd kind of spare the other candidates some punishment that they really deserve. I've done less reviews over-all this past year and took a break from some of the truly awful stuff for the most part, but there are some things that can truly line up with the worst-of-the-worst. While only the bottom five here would make up the Top 25 things I've ever Reviewed; they'd all definitely make the top 50 review. Also, some of the entries might surprise you. Number 11: Numbers Game - Captain Planet This is probably a surprising entry, as number 11 tends to be, but I think that it really deserves it. What you'll notice throughout this entire list is that I really hate it when a show tries to tackle a serious issue and botches it up. Captain Planet may not have been the best show in the world, but it usually got the message right. However, the issue of overpopulation is just screwed with beyond all belief. Nevermind the insulting way it's conveyed (honestly, Johnny Population Control) would be less offensive. Let's start with the fact that Captain Planet is aimed at the 7-11 audience, if not younger. That's a little young to get people to think about how many kids they should have. Not to mention that this is the second episode they tried to talk about overpopulation. At least when they talked about HIV/AIDS, they only did it once. But... I think this episode has a massive misunderstanding about overpopulation. This problem isn't... equal all over the world. Overpopulation is the biggest issue in developing countries, while in first world countries most of the birth rates have fallen below replacement level. Replacement level in developed nations is 2.1. Right now the United States is at a fertility rate of 1.9 (children per woman), as is most of Europe with the exception of countries like Italy that is at 1.4 and Portugal having one of the lowest in the world at 1.3. This is going to cause problems in its own right as a country tends to rely on its young to do things like pay social security and fight in the wars, but let's talk about overpopulation. You don't get a country to drop in birth rates by telling people not to have kids. Especially when they're like seven years old. You lower birth rates by giving people access to birth control and sex education, also reduce the needs for having children. In places with very fertility rates, they also have very high infant mortality rates, and as I've previously stated: the old rely on the young. Children themselves can be a form of social security. You have someone to tend to the business if you by chance break your back. This issue is long and complicated, too complicated to be explained in a mere 22 minutes (while having a story and a crazy dream sequence). It also probably shouldn't be aimed at people who can do literally nothing about it. Normally I say that there's nothing you can't put into a kids show, but... there has to be some kind of merit to it, you know? Telling seven and eight year olds how many kids they should have... when they're like 20 years from making that decision seems... really strange. Honestly, I've considered making another supplement on this episode specifically because population is such a complicated issue. You know, when people don't keep saying "stop having kids or we're all going to go post-apocalypse and fight over important resources and have water wars." Number 10: Greg - Pickle and Peanut I thought that I reviewed Breadwinners last year. Oh wait, no this is just a cheap carbon copy. I think we can agree that even if this era in animation is really good, it still has some bad tropes and traits. This show is a pretty good amalgamation of all of them. To top it off, because this show came from a company as "clean" as Disney, it didn't want to use any of the teeth that they super glued to this thing. I've ranted on all of these traits before. The two idiots indistinguishable from each other, in a cheap attempt to rip off shows like Regular Show. There's the cut out animation. I'm going to say it, even if they distort it, it always looks lazy. I don't think I've ever seen this style look appealing once. I'm sure there's a way to do it, like if the whole show was one animated magazine collage, but it just doesn't work here and it makes it look like they're too lazy to animate. But these people are Disney, so that really can't be the case. I'd talk more about this, but it seems like I already have, a lot. With many of the SpongeBob Episodes, Breadwinners, Fanboy and Chum Chum, Sanjay and Craig. I think I'm beginning to notice a pattern here. If the show's title is "character 1" and "character 2" and there's no difference between the two, it's going to be awful. I really don't know what to say. I almost didn't want to put it on the list because I have such little else to say than what I said in the review. On top of that it's hard to figure out a place to put it. I mean it's trying to be gross, but failing to be gross. Does that make it better... or worse? I... really don't know. It's just an anomaly. Number 9: Hired - 12 Oz Mouse And here's the... it's so lazy, as any type of artist it makes me angry that this shit could have gotten on television. Last year it was Over Two Rainbows and this year it's a show that was seemingly made with MS Paint. Normally when you review something like this, you're hit with the excuse of "you just don't understand it man, it's ART." Which is what I prepared for when I went into the review. It didn't work. I've been hit with so many other excuses. "It's like what a child would draw to show off its surrealness." Okay, now explain to me why the show Stickin' Around is good and 12 Oz. Mouse is shit. "You're judging a book by its cover." Look, I went into this show looking for any possible layer of depth. I looked at it from every artistic style that existed, and besides dada (making crap for the sake of making crap), postmodernism came the closest. I gave this show every chance I could, and I even gave it excuses by all rights it didn't have. The story gets "deep" by ripping off the Matrix. Also, if this show actually had a good, immersive story, it would probably be an inspiration to being able to work with your weaknesses. But when both writing and art are shit, what can you do with that? Another excuse? It was supposed to be bad. I... really don't get that at all. When is that a justification for anything. Oh yes... I got into that car crash on purpose. That makes the car crash so much better. Let's actually talk about the writing because that's what I do. When you're making something "surreal" you need to give people a tight-rope back to reality or people will be lost, or they'll act pretentious pretending not to be lost. For example, the movie Waking Life takes place entirely in a dream. But it follows the same character who meets the definition of a protagonist. When you get very good at art, you can break rules and conventions. The problems with this show are: you actually have to be good at art, and you can't break every single convention at the same time. By being good at art, and keeping hold of conventions, things like Don Hertzfeldt's It's Such a Beautiful Day turns out to be a very moving piece of animation. Also despite being made by one guy, it has better animation than a show put on television. I do not like the trope "stylistic suck" because it's all too often a way to excuse legitimate sucking, and it's far too often used to deflect actual criticism. There are times when "it's supposed to be that way" is very justifiable, and sometimes the observer isn't very observant, but on some level, as an artist, you're supposed to be communicating something to your audience. The only thing that 12 Oz. Mouse communicates to me is baby babble. Number 8: Castle Wiz - The Tom and Jerry Show 'On some level, 12 Oz Mouse may have tried to do something. This episode did not do that. It did not try. It tried literally nothing. This review was painful to make because nothing happened but like a seven minute run sequence. Yes, this episode was seven minutes and it felt like it went on for ''hours. I've never reviewed anything so tediously monotone as this. I like Tom and Jerry. They're good characters with an expert understanding of slapstick comedy. However, their first television outing is awful. Normally when I review something incredibly lazy like Pixel Pinkie or Over Two Rainbows, I at least get a kind of laugh over how they cut corners. It's interesting to figure out what they thought their audience would be too stupid to not notice missing. There was no intrigue here because they didn't even put effort into not putting effort into the show. Give Over Two Rainbows some credit, it probably found flash shortcuts previously unknown to man. This episode is the pure essence of "not caring." The show cut so many corners that it is a circle. The review gave me barely anything to talk about, and I don't have anything more to talk about here. It's literally seven minutes of Tom and Jerry running around a castle, and they're friends of course because parents who didn't watch cartoons wanted that. God the 70's were horrible for animation. '''Number 7: Boys vs. Girls - Teen Titans Go This episode is on the list (and this high) for every single cartoon and sitcom to use this plot. Stop me if you've heard this before. The male characters have become inexplicably sexist (even if they weren't in previous episodes) and prevent a female character from joining a sports team. The female character gets on the team, or another one, and shows up everyone being the all-star. And this proves that both sexes are equal because one sex is better. Gender equality stories are kind of like time travel stories in how seldom television stories seem to get it right. Unlike with time travel though, this should not be complicated. (In fact, I'm writing one now to flip this whole story on its head. Should be fun). I'm going to talk about this episode specifically, but there's a lot to say about the plot type itself. Let's start with the obvious: the attitude that girls can't play sports or do more "masculine" things has pretty much died in the past 20 years. There are also laws that prevent discrimination, like Title IX. Also, the male main characters in your story probably aren't chauvinists (usually) because that's one of the fastest ways to make a character hated. If you're wondering though, the best plotline I've seen doing this is Bobby-Slam from King of the Hill. It proves that you can tell this story while not making main characters sexist and without implying superiority of one sex over another. I desperately want to think that Boys vs. Girls is a parody on this kind of story. Like... "if we follow the logic of these types of stories, this is what could happen hyuck hyuck." There's definitely a lot of analysis that could be had on a topic like that, and it would be a very interesting angle to take this. But this is Teen Titans Go. They don't do analysis. They make bathrooms come to life and form a Stargate. There's literally no way to know how serious that they're being. From the beginning it seems that they're trying to teach a moral "not to be sexist." If the latter part "girls are better than boys" is a joke, am I supposed to think that the first part is a joke too? Are both of these serious, or are both of these sarcastic jokes? Tonally, there's no difference between the two. Do I think that kids would actually listen to this message? I don't know. Like, I think that this particular episode has capacity to do actual damage. First of all, dangerous messages get a lot worse when there are some people who would want to believe them. It's called confirmation bias, and it can even happen with stupid shit like this. But actual facts show that boys, in the age range that supposedly watch this show, get worse grades than girls and are much more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD. Episodes like this aren't the cause of said problem, but I don't assume they're doing the world any favors. I cannot just let this slide as a "harmless joke." And yes, if the genders in this were flipped, I'd be saying the exact same thing. This episode is a confused, unfunny, sexist piece of trash that I would not show children. Worst Teen Titans Go episode, ever. I have a feeling that episodes like this are going to, unfortunately give me a lot of material. After all, I still need to review the adult version of this episode "Peter-Assment." There's also "Lisa the Simpson" Once again though, I could do a supplement on this episode. I could do several, but I don't want to become one-note. If you do want to see the supplement on any of these though, let me know. Number 6: The Ceremony - Brothers Grunt Unfortunately there's not much I can say about this one. It was seven minutes long if you included the two music videos. If it was longer, like say Mega Babies, I'd have more to say. The animation in this is hideous, but that's literally all there is to it. There isn't much more I could say about it. I'm actually wondering if I should have reviewed two or three episodes simultaneously. The only reason I didn't is because I don't think it would help me find more to say. It would just prolong my complaining how gross it is. This is why I don't really like reviewing gross out shows. Yeah, it's not just because I hate gross out. It's the almost inevitably they give me nothing to say. If you want to give me something to talk about you could have a whole plot lined with gross out, like.... Number 5: Herpe the Love Sore - Family Guy So, now we can talk about the actual diseases that you can catch from the opposite sex. I think I've said this before, but Brian is an awful character. I don't know if the writers are self-aware about this by now, but every single time I watch him he does or says something that just makes you hate him more and more. If they're doing it on purpose... you've actually got to do something with the bile garnered for a character. But enough about Brian, the episode itself is just a convoluted mess. Stewie wants to be blood brothers instantly... because. I mean give Stewie is Encinte some credit. At least Stewie had a reason to want to impregnate himself. In this episode... he saw a western. Also, Chris didn't have any reason at all to be Blood Brothers. Like... these aren't even joke reasons for the plot to happen. They're... "no reasons." This plot doesn't make sense, even by cartoon standards. I'd be more outraged by Brian's behavior, but unlike in episodes like Brian's a Bad Father... how do I explain this. In the movie Twister ''who gets angry at the twister? Or in ''The Day After Tomorrow, does anyone get angry at the encroaching cold? No. That's what Brian is in this episode. He's destructive and awful to be sure, but he doesn't seem to have a personality beyond "destructive force of nature." He does stuff, not even for a selfish reason. He does stuff because that's what forces of nature do. I don't know what this episode was... really trying to accomplish. I feel like it's trying to make me angry at something, with both plots being absolutely awful and there being disgusting herpes animated everywhere, but it just doesn't have a lot of direction. They didn't even seem like they had much of an idea of a plot beyond "Brian gives Stewie Herpes." "YES! Write it! We'll think of all of the details later. Or we won't." Number 4: The Pom Pom Girl - My Life Me I have no idea about anything that happened in this episode. I literally do not remember the plot, or any of the character names. In my memory I cannot distinguish the main characters from the background characters. This show is just... bad, and it gets a guaranteed spot on the Top 10 worst shows of the 2010's. Speaking of which, now that they're continuing Samurai Jack now, it means that I probably shouldn't include it in the Top 10 best shows of the 2000's, allowing me to keep number 1 a surprise there. I don't have to make any rules to keep the list fresh. But back to My Life Me. I remember watching this episode. I remember watching it several times. And I remember some of the stuff that happened. I had to rewatch the review to figure out what the hell this was about. Characters do random things. The plot does random things. The characters are indistinguishable. The plot points are indistinguishable. The main character we are supposed to like has an evil plan to destroy some people she just... doesn't like. The "mean girl bullies" only humiliate our main characters in private. Not-Manga Girl's plan is confusing and goes back and forth with no warning or reason. I feel like watching this show and trying to figure out what's going on is trying to decode some ancient dead language. People say things that make no sense. "Nice one... Makeover under dress..." This is probably the laziest show ever on television. A character enters the plot halfway through and threatens the main character halfway through. He's someone we're supposed to like. Not-Manga Girl's friends is the only one who records her embarrassing incident (not the mean girl bullies). How did this show get on the air!? Did it even have a script? My Life Me is... the most bizarre failure in the world. Number 3: Space Circus - Casper and the Angels 'This is probably surprisingly high for most of you, but I'll be honest, this review was an endurance round for me. I went into this thinking that it'd just be ridiculous and stupid. I'd have a little bit of a laugh making fun of it, like with ''Fonzie and the Happy Days Gang ''(which I might actually consider a guilty pleasure, because that's what it takes to be "so bad, it's good"). But ugh... everything about this show is annoyance personified. Or rather, ghostified. My biggest issue with this episode was Harry Scary. He's everything I don't like in a character. He's stupid, "whimsical," a free-loader, gets other characters into trouble and gets away with it. Oh no, he actually gets rewarded for trying, and an apology from the others for "keeping him down." Now, I don't blame the voice actor for this, but someone told him to give this character the most obnoxious voice that I've ever heard in animation. Just listening to it makes me want to stab my ears. You might not know this because the issue comes about so rarely, but if unfortunate implications/destructive morals don't make me hate an episode, it's the sound. I always hate obnoxious sounds more than disgusting visuals. And yeah, I was angry in this review from the sound alone. It might be a spoiler for an upcoming list, but I don't see any cartoon topping this for the worst cartoon of the 70's. Though that means I need to see several episodes to truly be fair... By the way, if your parents tell you that "cartoons were better in their day" (which mine often did), the late 70's/early 80's really, really tend to disagree. I mean the concept of the show itself shows you how desperate they were to scrape the bottom of the barrel back then. And no, I'm not done reviewing 70's cartoons, 80's cartoons, or all that. I'm just more likely to review cartoons from the 90's, 2000's, and today because I'm much more familiar with them, and they tend to be more available. I would have already reviewed things like "The Little Clowns of Happy Town" if I could find footage. It's hard to find footage from 80's shows in particular. I mean I still haven't tackled a shameless Scooby Doo clone after all. I just tackled a show with everything else wrong with the 70's (maybe besides pointless celebrity focus). '''Number 2: Hospital - Stressed Eric '''If someone made a show specifically to appeal to everything that I didn't like, ''Stressed Eric would be it. I understand that there may be a sort of culture clash going on here, because many of the American reviews of the show were not favorable. Although it didn't last long in England or New Zealand either, so the jury is still out. I'm not going to assume anything because I'm building up a track record of getting things about other countries wrong (apparently dandelions are a good symbol in South Korea). But I reviewed it, and this is based on my own personal feelings. And personally, I really don't like this show. And here's the thing. I actually like shows like Rocko's Modern Life which seems to have a very similar premise. Life sucks and it's going to kick you in the gut over and over again. The main difference? Rocko's Modern Life embraces being a cartoon, while Stressed Eric... gets too real. And too depressing. Rocko's Modern Life has amusing injuries - in the intro Rocko is flattened and flipped with a spatula. In Stressed Eric, Eric gets stabbed with a knife and is squirting red blood. While Eric's situations can be described as "ridiculously over the top" it's done in the worst possible way. Each of the individual problems aren't ridiculous. They're painfully realistic. It's shows and episodes like this that give me a weird feeling of claustrophobia. There's the feeling of just being trapped, like trapped in your own life. And whatever you do you can never improve things and why bother. It's like Boating Buddies, the show. I'm sure... this has an audience somewhere, but I am definitely not it. Watching this show was one of the most uncomfortable reviewing experiences I've had in awhile. Yes, bad enough to be Top 10 episodes overall bad. And let's talk about the audio. That's what gives this its extra edge. It might not be endemic to the entire show, but this episode at least is filled with painful alarms, stutters, buzzes, and all other kinds of painful sounds. I don't know why. Yes, they hurt Eric, but they seem to hurt the audience even more. I couldn't watch this episode without getting a headache, but that might be from all of the cringing. It took uncomfortable in the first few seconds and kept pushing it ten miles. 'Number 1: Screams in Silence: The Story of Brenda Q - Family Guy '''No surprises here. I've talked about this episode for 30 minutes total now. Awhile back I made a list of the Worst Family Guy episodes. I think this was like Number 9. Most of that list is very outdated now, but I was way off on this one. It's the worst Family Guy episode. ''Fresh Heir? Were you trying to disgust me as much as this episode did? Brian's a Bad Father? Oh... did you think that episode was an insulting attempt to be heartwarming? Seahorse Seashell Party? Did you think that the message was insulting? Everything about this episode is terrible. Whose idea was it to put a PSA about domestic abuse in a show where abuse was a running gag? Is Breaking Bad going to lecture me on drug abuse next? Screams in Silence is a strange beast because it's terrible for both what it is, and what it isn't. I've dedicated a 15 minute review to each of these angles: '''What it is: A misogynistic piece of shit, where it's written that it's Brenda's fault she's being abused. It's entirely clueless about the laws surrounding domestic abuse. It says the only way to solve a problem is to commit murder. Quagmire ends up making it more his problem, than Brenda's. Brenda is a bad character, existing only to be abused. What it isn't: an attempt to portray domestic abuse realistically. It tries to tell the typical Lifetime movie story which is, unfortunately, systematic of a larger problem that shortchanges actual victims of any sex, gender, or orientation. It does no service to anyone, and tries to use shock value rather than actually do things realistically. It doesn't realize that fictional problems only get fictional solutions. Most domestic abuse isn't a big powerful man beating on a tiny defenseless woman. Most domestic abuse is two people shouting at each other and playing mind games. I have very little respect for artists who sacrifice realism for "drama" when it comes to down-to-earth serious issues. Sometimes it's necessary, like in A Beautiful Mind ''where real life John Nash's hallucinations are changed from auditory to visual, but a lot of times it's not, like what I mentioned with Postpartum Depression. The dramatic becomes realistic in the public eye, and then we have things like people thinking that autism is a child rocking back and forth in the corner. Or a teenager with depression just being treated as "moody." Or that Multiple Personality Disorder is Schizophrenia. I understand perfectly that this is fiction and fiction, by definition, needs to take some liberties. But it poses the question of "how far do we go." Even if you encourage someone to get educated about a matter, many of them won't. And even more of them think that your dramatized portrayal has educated them. This even leads to very simple misconceptions. For example, if you live in the United States and you get arrested, are you required by law to get a free phone call? The answer is no. And that's when the story isn't trying to be "based on a true story" or claim "this shit really happens and this is how it happens." I don't think that after watching ''Ren Seeks Help''anyone will get a skewed opinion on animal abuse. They're not going to think that their abuse "isn't that bad" or someone else will think that someone else's abuse "isn't that bad." Not only do I think the opposite of ''Screams in Silence, I know'' that the episode will skew people's perception of domestic abuse. Maybe not alone, but along with all of the others of its kin. I know that it's kind of passe to say that media can affect people. You've probably heard this from a lot of crazy and annoying people. I'm not saying that shooting people in a video game is going to make people go on shooting sprees. But if the only way you see things is through the media, it's going to affect your perception. For example, some people in other countries think that their arrest was flawed because they weren't read their Miranda Rights. Ignoring the fact that's only a United States thing, the police don't legally have to read you your Miranda Rights. How many people still think that polygraph tests work? The audience knows that they're being fed a fictional story, but they do end up believing that you're basing your stories on actual... you know, facts. Sometimes it's generally harmless. If your car catches on fire, there's no guarantee that it'll explode, but it might be wise to hightail it out of there. A lot of the times... it's not. Like here. I could talk more about the larger implications of ''Screams in Silence and its kin, but... 30 minutes. And yes, I do have to consider it worse than Ren Seeks Help. Category:Top Tens